How to Prevent, Spot, and Avoid Spear Phishing Attacks
Most of us are somewhat familiar with common email scams and have likely
received fairly questionable messages asking for our personal details.
A princess needs just a little bit of your money to pay the banking fees that release her fortune, much of which will go to you for your trouble and your altruism. A lawyer (struggling with spelling and syntax) is pleased to inform you that a relative you were unaware of has died, leaving all of their wealth to you! The attorney just needs your banking information to successfully transfer the funds to you account. The list of examples goes on.
Maybe you got an email from a bank you don’t have an account with, or a service you don’t subscribe to requesting that you click a link to learn more. Clumsy phishing scams like this are familiar enough to become a cliché, if not a joke.
But being too confident when it comes to identifying scams can be a bad thing, leading many to lower their guard, assuming that internet scams are unsophisticated, only fooling the gullible and naïve. That’s not the case. It is estimated that cyber crime could cost businesses over $5.2 trillion over the next five years. With possible profits exceeding a trillion dollars a year, cyber criminals have every reason to keep at it, and do so with increasingly sophisticated strategies. One of the most insidious of those is “spear phishing.”
What Is Spear Phishing?
The concept of “phishing” is pretty well-known. It generally involves a sort of shotgun approach in which fraudsters send out usually official-looking emails that warn recipients of some urgent issue. There often is a link included to learn more about or to find out how to resolve the issue (though strategies vary). When clicked, the link infects the computer with malware. Spear phishing, on the other hand, isn’t a shotgun approach. It is targeted and elaborate.
The scammer uses specific information about the target’s life, business, hobbies, friends, personal details, and so on to make a scam email look incredibly official and accurate. For the money at stake, it is well worth it for the scammer to do a considerable amount of research, which often doesn’t require that much time or effort if they’re able to find your personal information through search engines, social media, or data broker sites. Spear phishing also often includes a link to sort out or learn more about the call-to-action cited by the email that’s actually malware. Attacks like this are one more reason why it’s wise to learn how to remove personal information from Google and also remove your private data from data broker sites.
How to Prevent, Spot, and Avoid It
One of the best ways to prevent being victimized by spear phishing attacks is to both limit and remove as much of your personal data from the internet as possible. Lock down your social media profiles with the highest privacy levels possible and be careful to avoid sharing overly personal information and data that you don’t want strangers accessing. You should follow this preventative step on networking sites and publicly-accessible forums and the like as well.
Contracting with an organization that can remove personal information from Google and the other data brokers is also an excellent way to keep your personal information private. A subscription service such as DeleteMe can even remove your personal information from data broker sites such as Whitepages and search engines like Google and keep it removed year-round, making you less of a spear phishing target.
Additionally, many of the same strategies for avoiding being taken in by a phishing scam apply to spear phishing. If you’re ever sent an email with an urgent message: Your bank account has been illegally accessed, your membership to a service has been cancelled, there’s a tax problem, a payment has been declined, even a subpoena, don’t simply click the link included. An easy and effective way to bypass potential malware infections is to contact the entity being cited in the email directly. Call your bank or the service mentioned and verify the information in the email. A company specializing in data privacy and protection is sure to have some valuable tips to share as well.
About DeleteMe
DeleteMe sets the standard in the industry for ensuring the privacy of your data and optimizing your online security. Based in Boston, DeleteMe has built this reputation by leveraging the expertise of their specialists and by providing over 10 million successful consumer opt-outs. DeleteMe has unmatched experience in and cutting-edge tools for securing data privacy and providing consumer security. They can assist with information removal from Whitepages and other data broker sites as well as search engines like Google.
Keep all of your personal information as private as it should be, at Joindeleteme.com
A princess needs just a little bit of your money to pay the banking fees that release her fortune, much of which will go to you for your trouble and your altruism. A lawyer (struggling with spelling and syntax) is pleased to inform you that a relative you were unaware of has died, leaving all of their wealth to you! The attorney just needs your banking information to successfully transfer the funds to you account. The list of examples goes on.
Maybe you got an email from a bank you don’t have an account with, or a service you don’t subscribe to requesting that you click a link to learn more. Clumsy phishing scams like this are familiar enough to become a cliché, if not a joke.
But being too confident when it comes to identifying scams can be a bad thing, leading many to lower their guard, assuming that internet scams are unsophisticated, only fooling the gullible and naïve. That’s not the case. It is estimated that cyber crime could cost businesses over $5.2 trillion over the next five years. With possible profits exceeding a trillion dollars a year, cyber criminals have every reason to keep at it, and do so with increasingly sophisticated strategies. One of the most insidious of those is “spear phishing.”
What Is Spear Phishing?
The concept of “phishing” is pretty well-known. It generally involves a sort of shotgun approach in which fraudsters send out usually official-looking emails that warn recipients of some urgent issue. There often is a link included to learn more about or to find out how to resolve the issue (though strategies vary). When clicked, the link infects the computer with malware. Spear phishing, on the other hand, isn’t a shotgun approach. It is targeted and elaborate.
The scammer uses specific information about the target’s life, business, hobbies, friends, personal details, and so on to make a scam email look incredibly official and accurate. For the money at stake, it is well worth it for the scammer to do a considerable amount of research, which often doesn’t require that much time or effort if they’re able to find your personal information through search engines, social media, or data broker sites. Spear phishing also often includes a link to sort out or learn more about the call-to-action cited by the email that’s actually malware. Attacks like this are one more reason why it’s wise to learn how to remove personal information from Google and also remove your private data from data broker sites.
How to Prevent, Spot, and Avoid It
One of the best ways to prevent being victimized by spear phishing attacks is to both limit and remove as much of your personal data from the internet as possible. Lock down your social media profiles with the highest privacy levels possible and be careful to avoid sharing overly personal information and data that you don’t want strangers accessing. You should follow this preventative step on networking sites and publicly-accessible forums and the like as well.
Contracting with an organization that can remove personal information from Google and the other data brokers is also an excellent way to keep your personal information private. A subscription service such as DeleteMe can even remove your personal information from data broker sites such as Whitepages and search engines like Google and keep it removed year-round, making you less of a spear phishing target.
Additionally, many of the same strategies for avoiding being taken in by a phishing scam apply to spear phishing. If you’re ever sent an email with an urgent message: Your bank account has been illegally accessed, your membership to a service has been cancelled, there’s a tax problem, a payment has been declined, even a subpoena, don’t simply click the link included. An easy and effective way to bypass potential malware infections is to contact the entity being cited in the email directly. Call your bank or the service mentioned and verify the information in the email. A company specializing in data privacy and protection is sure to have some valuable tips to share as well.
About DeleteMe
DeleteMe sets the standard in the industry for ensuring the privacy of your data and optimizing your online security. Based in Boston, DeleteMe has built this reputation by leveraging the expertise of their specialists and by providing over 10 million successful consumer opt-outs. DeleteMe has unmatched experience in and cutting-edge tools for securing data privacy and providing consumer security. They can assist with information removal from Whitepages and other data broker sites as well as search engines like Google.
Keep all of your personal information as private as it should be, at Joindeleteme.com
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